A challenging read with almost zero likability among the main characters and absolutely beautiful prose about food, this one will be polarizing when it hits shelves. I liked the author's choice not to specify exactly how Piglet's fiance betrayed her; leaving that open to interpretation turns it into a little Rorschach test for the reader -- what would be bad enough to send you into an emotional spiral yet not bad enough to make you leave? Ultimately, this feels like a story about the myriad ways we stuff down our feelings, and the destruction that happens when there's just no more room inside us to keep stuffing things down. I'm not sure if I liked it, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I finished it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of Piglet in exchange for my honest review.

Available Feb. 27th, 2024

Rating: 3.5

Possible spoilers:


A quick read, but I didn't really connect with any of the characters. I felt like the eating disorders presented with 2 of the characters could really have benefitted with more depth and explanation. I think it would've been really interesting to learn more about Franny and Piglet's upbringing, and how they each developed eating disorders. Both were just barely touched upon.

I also felt like Kit and PIglet's relationship seemed unlikely and strange. Both characters didn't really seem to know much about the other, yet they were getting married despite many red flags on both sides.

The author definitely made a choice not letting the reader know what Kit had actually confessed to, and while this works in keeping the reader wanting to finish the story, it seemed like she could've shared this at the end. Did he commit adultery, did he confess to being gay, was he a compulsive gambler? We'll never know.

Overall, a quick read that kept my interest, but lacked the depth I think this novel needed to be even better.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC! This book is the perfect combination of female rage, beautiful descriptions of cooking and food, friendship and moments that make you physically recoil. I felt like I was going through the motions with the main character, even if they made me want to crawl under a blanket. I loved the writing style and that all the facts weren’t just laid out for the reader. This book is for anyone that loves a main character that is such a mess that you can’t look away and cooking.

Thank you Henry Holt for my free ARC of Piglet by Lottie Hazell — available Feb 27!

Read this if you:
🙀 are into reads that are so stressful, they're positively gripping
🥘 love everything about food and cooking
🫣 have ever lived through what felt like a waking nightmare

Piglet (yes, that's what everyone calls her) is living her dream life — until it becomes a nightmare. Suddenly, her ideal job, new home, and perfect fiancé are threatening to drown her, and she can't figure out how to move forward. As Piglet's wedding to Kit approaches, she starts to crack under the pressure, but she's doing what she can to get her life back on track.

Y'all, this book is tough to describe. I didn't actually read the synopsis before I started (that cover got me), so I had no clue where the story was headed, and I highly recommend that approach! Our girl Piglet is an absolute disaster, and it's really not her fault. This is one of those reads that is SO STRESSFUL to sit through, but you absolutely MUST know what happens next or you will burst. I devoured it. Piglet is such a sympathetic character, I loved her even though some of her decisions were WHACK, and I think the end was just perfection. I highly recommend it if you're into unique litfic reads and fabulous descriptions of a foodie wonderland!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Well-Written Story Full of Unanswered Questions and Drama

SUMMARY
Piglet is a rising star in a London publishing house, where she works as a cookbook editor. She's also a talented cook with a handsome fiancé named Kit, who seems to have everything she could ask for. However, when Kit confesses a devastating betrayal just weeks before their wedding day, Piglet turns to food to soothe her broken heart. Despite the betrayal, she decides to go ahead with the wedding. But as the big day approaches, Piglet feels increasingly uneasy due to work pressures, family expectations, and her desire to bake her wedding cake. Her anxiety leads her to gorge on food. She is torn between what she thinks she wants and what she truly wants.

REVIEW
PIGLET, the novel, is well-written, well-organized, and a quick read. However, Piglet, the character, is a hot mess for several reasons. She is vulnerable and weak and repeatedly fails to take responsibility for her own happiness. Even when her friends and boss try to help her, she self-sabotages. I find reading books with such characters unsatisfying.

With Piglet’s character driving the narrative, the story is full of drama, but it leaves many unanswered questions. The author appears to be holding back the specific context of Kit's betrayal as a hook to keep readers interested. I was eager to know what Kit had done to trigger Piglet's reaction but was left wanting.

Another unanswered question is whether Piglet has an eating disorder. The book alludes to one incident as a child, but it's unclear whether she has one or not. Addressing this issue more directly would have been a great opportunity to raise awareness about the issue and perhaps even provide support for people suffering from eating disorders.

It's also perplexing why anyone, but particularly someone with an eating disorder, would allow themselves to be called Piglet. And the fact that her parents would call her that is unbelievable. We never even learn her given name till the end.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Publisher Henry Holt
Published February 24, 2024
Review www.bluestockingreviews.com

While I think the story was very unique and interesting, I did find myself annoyed with the main character at times. It doesn’t mean the book was bad, just a slightly unlikable character. Overall, I enjoyed it!

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the ARC!

This book has some of the most glorious, sensual food writing I have read in some time, and I could have read a hundred more pages of something like the first half of the novel. I do feel like it fell apart a bit in the second part - I felt that I struggled to understand Piglet’s behavior and there wasn’t enough history given to her relationship with her family to make the story make sense and make the reader invested. I did still enjoy the writing greatly, and I would be curious to read whatever this author does next.

there is really no other novel out there like this. character-driven contemporary fiction (my fav) but told primarily through descriptions of the cooking of lavish meals and internal dialogue.

the format of this novel was so interesting, we meet Piglet 98 days before her wedding to her dream man and dream life but 13 days before, her fiance tells her something that changes her plans. the entire novel felt like a ticking timebomb, counting down to what? so much was left to the reader including what her fiance tells her that disrupts her world.

a fun and approachable commentary on class, greed, gluttony, anorexia, infidelity, and more!

we watch as Piglet forces herself to fit in boxes (and dresses) that are designed for her but do not make her happy. her indifference towards everything comes to the seams as her craving for food outweighs her craving to conform to her new life.

will definitely be thinking about this for a long time.

thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

This book is going to be one of my favorites of 2024, that much I can guarantee. I literally couldn’t put it down and was up until after 3am on a Sunday night/Monday morning finishing it. Incredible.

I started reading Piglet by Lottie Hazell while I was on a forced fast for some medical tests. Oh my gosh it was torture! Hazell wrote so wonderfully about all the ingredients and all the amazing dishes that Piglet cooks and I was drooling just imagining it all. So many delectable descriptions of food in this book. But Piglet isn’t only a great cook. She is also a cookbook editor, engaged to Kit, living in a beautiful new house, and counting down to her wedding in a few short weeks. But everything is not what it seems…kind of like those beautiful food spreads you see in magazines, or maybe the sample dishes that restaurants display. They look beautiful from a distance but dig in with a fork and you may find things are not as tasty or fresh as you had imagined. In Piglet’s world though appearances are everything, until they aren’t.

Piglet has some interesting issues. How did she get that nickname, and is it any wonder she might have issues with food? Why does she feel a “creeping pity” for her working class Derby family when she compares them to Kit’s upper class parents. Why must she work so hard to create the perfect image of her relationship with Kit…a life that is “carefully built and so smugly shared”?

I didn’t really like many of the characters but I was compelled to keep reading. Piglet built this fairytale life around Kit, but when he makes a devastating confession two weeks before their wedding she must decide if she will go ahead and marry him to maintain the facade or break it off and come clean with herself, her friends and her family. The novel follows Piglet as she wrestles with this decision and the toll this takes on her mental and physical well being. It is quite a journey. We don’t get the answers to all the questions though and I do wish we had gotten a bit more information on some of them. All in all the story held my attention to the very end and I felt the conclusion was well done.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Hold and Co for the chance to read Piglet and this is my honest review.

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024 and I was honestly a little disappointed by it. It wasn’t really what I expected. Still an interesting read. Thanks for the advance copy!

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for this advance readers copy, in exchange for an honest review. Piglet is the name of this book and is the nickname of our main character. She is set and on her way to marry charming Kit in a few weeks, with other pieces of her life, like her work as a cookbook editor and even her own excellent cooking skills, going well and only improving. However, Kit confesses a terrible betrayal about a week before and suddenly, all elements of Piglet’s life are called into question.

A very interesting aspect of this book is that we don’t actually learn what Kit’s betrayal is (although of course you can make some reasonable guesses). BUT, despite my own curiosity, this missing information truly doesn’t matter to the plot line. The author does an excellent job at using the characters cooking skills, elaborate meals, and even growing physical hunger throughout the story as an excellent metaphor to her realizing that she doesn’t truly know what she wants from her life, only that she wants more than what she’s currently getting. Although Piglet’s life looks perfect from the outset and based on everything she “has”, we can really sense the unhappiness she feels and the use of food as a symbol is this book is truly fantastic and unique. Piglet’s journey throughout the book endeared me to her greatly and I was rooting for her to take a stand, which propelled this story forward for me and helped me finish this in a few short sittings. To note as well— the author’s writing and descriptions of Piglet’s dishes are truly wonderful; it is very complementary to the metaphors within the book and really drives home its use as a key symbol.

I would recommend this book to fans of literary fiction and fans of self-growth/self-actualization stories!! I’ll be interested to see what other readers think of this one when it’s out in the world later this year!

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this one. Piglet was an interesting read. It didn’t give me any big feelings, neither positively nor negatively, which is why I am settling with a solid three stars.

“Piglet” is nicknamed as such for being so greedy in her family’s eyes, and perhaps she is, but not anymore than they average working young woman is in a first world country. Is it excusable? Not necessarily but is it so greedy to want a nice a wedding to a good husband, for your job to pay you praise, to have a nice home to share with someone you love? Maybe some would it is, but I would say that Piglet wasn’t the greediest person in this book.
(Admittedly, Piglet’s thoughts towards her family of embarrassment is harsh but with them calling her such a name, I can understand why she might not like to associate with them so much.). I wasn’t a fan of the continual use of her nickname, whether she was being addressed or not (however, I assume that was intentional).

The reflections on class, in particular between Piglet’s families and Kit’s families were good, as were the feelings of guilt that can stir when you long for more than you have. The depictions of her hunger and how instead of just wanting what she didn’t have, she was starving for it, was interesting but I think it honestly could have been delved into further (but perhaps I am just looking for this book to be weirder than the author ever intended).

I would be interested to see what Lottie Hazell does in the future because I do think there was some potential here, my attention just wasn’t particular enthralled.

Thank you to Henry Holt & Co and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was an interesting book in that it goes soooo in depth on the subject of food but then barely grazes other issues pertinent to the story: the big secret from piglets fiancé, her sister eating disorder, etc
This book is the equivalent of going to the supermarket when you’re starving- you think everything looks good then you buy way too much and regret it. The food descriptions while good just distracted from the character study. I felt too removed from piglet, kit, etc. an interesting debut and I’ll be interested in what this author does next but this was a bit of a miss for me.

Only read this if you are prepared to be very, very hungry. Like most people I could read pages and pages of food descriptions and this book is worth the read just for the gorgeous prose about food.
That being said, overall this book is very good, but not great. The entire time it felt like we were on the precipice of something, but it just couldn’t get there. Throughout the book there would be moments and I would think, oh this is IT. But then it would just shy back. I think if the author had really gone all in, I could see this being the type of unhinged story the booktok girlies would love.

ARC provided by NetGalley.

Impressive but not incredible. Well donennovel primarily told through and about food. Thanks for the arc and cheers

I'm obsessed with this book! I plan on reading it many more times, it was such a profound exploration of how our relationships with food, our friends, and family grow and change. Determining what path you want your life to take is so hard and I really felt Piglet's struggle. I moving tale of womanhood.

A serviceable novel that is beautifully written when it comes to describing the many mentions of food, cooking, and recipes. Many times I found myself wishing I could eat the foods being written about in this story. However, I think the focus on such long and interesting descriptions of the food and food being cooked in this story took away the author's focus to the overall story and characters, as I felt like the main character came across a bit bland. Maybe this was purposeful. Maybe the author wanted it to seem like the food the main character makes is more interesting than she is. Which, I could understand, however, it didn't come off totally purposeful.

My biggest fault with this story and the writing, was the fact that this "big secret" was never revealed. For the most part, I have no issue with unresolved endings. But this was different. It felt like a cheap and easy way to try and catch the reader's attention from the beginning, and hold it for the entirety of the story. There is no ultimate payoff for the reader. It became frustrating. And not knowing what the big secret is would have become less frustrating if there had at least been more developments with the character of the fiancee, as he was just as bland as the main character. The reader isn't left with much to speculate on what the fiancee had done when we never really learn the background of the fiancee and his flaws, besides having come from a wealthy family.

A decent read with an interesting concept for a story, that just doesn't satisfy the reader as much as the writing around the tasty sounding foods.

Piglet is a touching story of a young woman preparing for her upcoming wedding to a man who shared with her that he has betrayed her 2 weeks before the wedding. Throughout the book, the author introduces a young woman who is struggling to figure out how to manage the expectations of her family and society with what she feels is right. Piglet's family relates to her in a very patronizing, condescending matter. As she is trying to figure out her place in the world, very few people take her seriously and the only safe consistent factor in her life is food. The character development is outstanding, and I really felt like I came to know and understand Piglet.

The author left certain elements of the story intentionally vague and I found this lack of clarity to be somewhat distracting. Nonetheless I enjoyed Piglet and I recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Piglet is a book that has consumed my thoughts upon finishing. It has truly taken the spot of one of my favorite reads, and Piglet might be one of my new favorite characters. I’m surprised this was Lottie Hazell’s first read, but it was a wonderful first impression. Everything was divine, and I too, like Piglet, was left hungry for more.